Santa? I Know HIM!

Somebody was too young to understand that Santa was coming, but that didn't stop him from being too excited to sleep on Christmas Eve!  I'll admit we did our best to prepare him over the course of December by pointing out Santa wherever we went (yard decor, shopping and gift bags, Santa at the mall, etc.).  Maybe he was ready for Santa because this photo shoot?  Matthew kept saying, "Out! Out!", but he didn't cry.  (Just tilt your heads.  I don't know why it's sideways!)

This Christmas Matthew learned how to say the very festive seasonal words tree, ornament (ah-mint), Santa, Ho Ho Ho, and Merry Christmas!  And he also thinks that reindeer "woof-woof".

Whatever the reason for his excitement I think Ryan and I were even more excited.  Just look at that adorable face!  It made it hard for us to settle down to sleep, too!

We hope everyone had a wonderful, love filled Christmas Eve, too!

Good Nights and Good Mornings

I was told that I need to be recording more of Matthew's funny little stories because (according to those veteran moms) I will never remember them.  I know they're right because I can't even remember what he had for lunch on some days, and since I've been terribly remiss as of late here are a few stories that make me laugh.

Bedtime:
My funny little guy is apparently learning all about bedtime prayers.  Every night our bedtime routine consists of a bath/teeth brushing, reading one book, turning off the lights (we make a big production out of the lights), and then prayers.  Ryan and I always start the prayer like any average bedtime prayer and then we end it by asking Matthew what he is thankful for.  I was fairly certain that he had absolutely no understanding of what we were saying, but the other night he answered me by saying, "Daddy".  I blew it off as a coincidence but then the next night he said he was thankful for food.  The night after that he told Ryan that he was thankful for Mama.  He's continued every night since then.  Current list of things he is thankful for: Daddy, Mama, Food, Food and Mouth, Papa, and Book. 

It's also worth noting that Ryan and I end his prayers by saying, "Amen" and then Matthew likes add, "All done."

Morning:
The other morning my little doll decided to rise and shine extra early.  I'm a bit spoiled.  I can usually count on a 7:30 am baby alarm clock.  Don't misunderstand, he awakes at 7 and then Ryan and I enjoy the baby monitor wake up show of Matthew practicing his words.  Anyway, this particular morning he woke up EXTRA early with no indication of slowing down.  Seriously, it was still dark.  I gave in and did something I never do.  I got him out of the crib and put him in the toy filled play yard at the foot of our bed in hopes that we could squeeze in a few more minutes of shut eye.  He entertained himself for a few minutes but it wasn't long until we started hearing "I see you, Mama Daddy."  Then he started asking for "mote" and "catinzies".  For those of you who don't speak baby that means he wanted the remote so that he could turn on his cartoons. 

14 months old... I'm in trouble.  At the very least I can say that not a single day passes where Ryan and I don't have a good chuckle.

Duke

I was a little lax in my picture taking, but seeing Matthew with Duke reminded me of what Smokey is missing (or maybe I should say what Smokey escaped).  Duke spent a week with us and quickly learned the ways of the baby/dog relationship.

 

1. Food is good and comes from unlikely places.

2. It is important to learn how to dodge and weave.

3. Everyone needs a good hug every now and then.

Makes my heart melt!

Fantastic Food Friday: Baby Puree

So what the heck do you actually feed that kid? 

 

Since his diet is a bit restricted, that question comes up a lot.  Well, at least one meal a day is a creative concoction of beans, brown rice and veggies.  Not only is it healthy and void of any allergy producing ingredients, but it is also cheap-o-rama.  I know he's capable of eating most of this stuff without it being tossed in a food processor.  I, however, also know how lazy impatient I am.  A super chunky puree makes for a quick meal, and I can make an entire batch to freeze.

 

Mommy's Favorite - Black Bean Puree

 

1 can of rinsed and drained black beans

1 can of corn (not drained - be sure the ingredients just list corn and water)

1 cup of brown rice

 

Matthew's Favorite - Chick Pea Puree

This one is definitely not the best looking (or tasting), but Matthew gobbles it up.  I guess I should be thankful that he likes his green veggies!

1 can of rinsed and drained chick peas

1 can of peas (not drained - be sure the ingredients are just peas and water)

1 small can of spinach (really, just use that adorable little mini size can)

1 - 1.5 cups of brown rice

 

Nobody's Favorite (but necessary for variety) - Kidney Bean Puree

 

1 can of rinsed and drained kidney beans

1 can of green beans (not drained - I use french style with only beans and water)

1 cup of brown rice

 

Basically I dump everything in a pot, add a bit of pepper and a tiny pinch of salt, and heat through.  Then I dump the mixture into my food processor and scramble things up until it's a chunky mess.  Next, I pour the pureed mix into ice cube trays and freeze.  Once frozen the cubes can be popped out and put into labeled freezer storage bags.  Each recipe makes at least 8 servings.  The chick pea makes at least 12.  I consider a serving to be about 4 cubes. 

 

In one afternoon I can make about 30 servings at less than 20 cents per serving!  It's pretty awesome and Matthew loves them.

I Voted!

Little Mr. Friendly Face accompanied me to the polls today.  He was all waves and smiles to anyone who looked his way.  He even picked up the extra pencil in the voting "booth" and made a few extra marks on my ballot.  What a little stinker. 

 

Happy Halloweenie!

In our neck of the woods trick or treating and everything Halloween is celebrated on the 30th.  I've always said that this is totally wrong in so many ways, but now that we have a little cutie of our own I realize that it's given us multiple opportunities to dress him up.  We had two days of fun!  And when I say "we" I mean me, Ryan, and Steve... not necessarily Matthew.

 

Halloween Outfit #1

That happy little mug lasted WHOLE minutes before it melted into this...

 Halloween Outfit #2

Dear Steve and our favorite buddy, Duke, have come for a little visit and to help us with a few projects around the house.  Duke is a saint who tolerates Matthew following him around pointing and yelling "Duke, Duke!"...

or as it actually sounds, "Dick, Dick!". 

 

Halloween Outfit #3

(to replace #2 because somebody spilled water all over it)

Halloween Outfit #4

(clearly this was the winner)

Happy Halloween!!!  Hope it was spooktacular!

Bargaining & Compromise

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!  I made it a full year without bargaining with my infant son. 

However, this is how I've decided to cope with the bottle to sippy cup transition.

No, we don't usually allow him to watch TV like this.

 

I can now say that he's fully transitioned.  All it took was a cookie ("cook" as he calls them), our laps, and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and then he happily jumped on board with my plan.  At this point Ryan and I have seen more episodes than any adult human should ever admit in public.  Shh, we like it.  HOT DOG!

Milk Mug?

Well, not quite, but this is the face of a boy who just successfully ate 3 (yep, count 'em) 3 whole peach yogurt melts AND didn't have an allergic reaction.  WOOHOO!  We tried it on Sunday and so far so good. 

We're about to try 3 more today!

 

Fantastic Food Friday: Salad Jars

Where would we be without Pinterest?  Seriously?  Oh, and where would we be without mason jars?  Ryan and I make a huge batch of chili (like 8 servings) and a huge batch of pasta sauce and we freeze them in mason jars.  Then we have 2 of our weekly meals mostly done for almost 2 months!  It's cheap and awesome.  Well, awesome unless you do something silly like burn the chili like Ryan did to the last batch or add waaaaaay too much salt like I did to this current batch.  Basically we've had four months of crappy chili, but I digress.

 

Back to Pinterest... I saw these mason jar salads and just had to try them. 

Aren't they adorable?  

Mine were what I like to call Fiesta Salad.  It includes a ranch salsa dressing, a tiny bit of onion, black beans, corn, a little cheese, a little chicken and/or steak, and a combo of red leaf and green leaf lettuce.  I think I like this idea so much that I'll come up with a new theme every time I make a batch.  I feel Greek coming on next.  And yes, it is important to layer the ingredients so that your lettuce doesn't get soggy and die.  Mine were constructed in the order of the ingredients I just listed.  Yumtastic!

1 Year Stats

Shots?  What shots?  Where are my clothes?  Mom, I'd rather be looking at the fish mural.  Now where is that cute doctor that I like to flirt with?

Height: 29" (17th Percentile)

Weight: 21 lbs. 7 oz. (52nd Percentile)

Head Circumference: 46 cm (47th Percentile)

Size 4 Diapers
Size 3 Shoes
Size 12-Month Clothing
(But we put him in mostly 18-Months and roll up the sleeves and pants)

Words that he says fairly clearly and uses correctly...
Mama
Daddy
Booga/Booger (We don't know what he means when he says this, but it's really funny and he says it alot.)
Book
Shoes
Hi
Fa (fan)
Uh Oh
Whoops
Tickle
Quack
Na-Na (no)
Dog
Duck
Eyes
Hot Dog
Hi, Daddy

Words that he uses correctly, but only mommy and daddy understand...
Nose
Fish
Light
Truck

Words that he said clearly & used correctly, but has dropped from his vocab...
Baby
Out

Words that he says but has no idea what they mean...
Owie
Good

Fun things that he's capable of doing...

• Points at objects that he wants.  He points a lot.
• Walking!!!  He will go to the correct room when asked.   He definitely does NOT appreciate his baby prison play yard any more.
• Down to 2 bottles of formula a day (plus 2 sippy cups of formula and 1 sippy cup of water).  My goal is to have the bottles completely phased out by Thanksgiving.  He can drink from sippy cups like a champ, but he is really resisting giving up his bottle.
• Finger foods!  He loves to feed himself.  He likes to pretend to feed us, too.
• Plays pretend - so far I've seen him pretend to "talk" on the phone and pretend to feed himself and us. 
• He's always crossing his ankles.  It's so funny.  He does it when he's laying down (tummy or back), while he's kicked back watch cartoons and drinking his "milk", or sitting Indian style.  It's adorable and I don't want to forget that many moons down the road.
• One nap a day (if I'm lucky).  He goes to bed at 7:30 pm and we let him free around 8 am.
• Practices his words when he wakes up in the morning as heard over the baby monitor.  We get a good chuckle every morning.
• Yells at other babies to get their attention (by the way - hilarious).  We call this his Viking yell.
• Dances to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and any music that is on in the background, even music from his toys.

As far as check-ups go Matthew's 1-year couldn't have gone better!  Our doctor thinks he's doing great.  She was super impressed with his vocabulary and he entertained the desk staff with his exclamation of BOOGA.  Plus we've been given the green light to introduce a little bit of yogurt into his diet.  Dr. wants that to be the only dairy in his life until his 15-month well baby visit.  We also had to do another round of shots, give blood for an anemia check (which he passed), and give blood for a lead check since our house was built before 1975 and we're mired in we've done extensive renovations.  He passed that, too... and so did our house when we had it tested last year.

 

Here is my little guy after having blood drawn from his finger for the first time.  Look at those poor little fingers.  He looks a bit disgruntled, doesn't he?

He rebounds quickly!  Just taking a drive with his best bud, Scout.

He is seriously the sweetest little guy I've ever met.  He loves to snuggle and his favorite place to sit is in our laps.  These days his kisses are much more like normal people kisses.  They are so very sweet.  He just gave Scout a few of them right before I took that picture.

Pumpkin Patch

  Ryan took Friday afternoon off so that we could venture out for Matthew's first visit to the pumpkin patch.  Did I mention that we're new at this?  We didn't quite know which patch would be the most picturesque or entertaining.  Let's just say that you shouldn't be surprised if you find yourself reading another pumpkin patch entry before this season is over.  This patch was L-A-M-E by all adult standards.  I mean we couldn't even find the goats.  Shouldn't pumpkin patches have goats?  However, after wandering around and watching Matthew explore we decided that it was awesome to see Matthew having so much fun on his first pumpkin discovery adventure.  Apparently by being a pumpkin patch newbie he didn't know that the patch was a dud, plus the weather was beautiful. 

I guess that means our day was a success! 

 

Here we are in the parking lot all full of hope and optimism.

 I just really like this pic of Matty on the pony trailer.

 They did have ponies... and flies.  There was one other little boy at the patch who really wanted to ride the pony, but he wouldn't go near them because of the flies.   That same little boy also really wanted a pumpkin, but, well, flies.  Poor kid.  The flies didn't deter Matthew.

 Here he is letting out his I'm-Trying-To-Figure-This-Out Viking yell.

 Hurry, Mommy!  I want to go over there! 

He was leading me ALL over the place. 

 Gotcha!

 No, seriously, I really gotcha!

Nope, kiddo, we've got you

and we couldn't be more excited about it!

Oh, Did I Mention?

This is the face I've been staring at for the last 3 days.  Yep.  My child who never ever cries.  Apparently this is how he is handling the lack of constant attention since all of our friends and family have departed our humble abode.  Fun.  Really, fun.  That plus 2 awesome head colds (his and mine) equal a peaceful household.  Ha!  He does look adorable crying though, don't you think?  Poor sweet boy!  Those sweet cheeks are going to make resisting temper tantrums mighty difficult.

Happy 1st Birthday!

Somebody had his very first birthday party this past weekend!  We planned an adult party that could potentially utilize our awesome new deck, but Mother Nature had other plans, as in 50 degree weather. We ended up with a bunch of adults crammed into our little casa, and it appeared like everyone was okay with the elbow to elbow action.  Little man knew something was up.  He was super happy waiting for the festivities to begin.  He loved checking out the pictures of himself decorations.

 

Here is a glimpse of the party decor.  Everyone worked so hard to get the place decked out.  Seriously hard.  We absolutely would not have been ready in time if it hadn't been for all of the help we had. 

Good job, team!

And if you love Pinterest then you'll love the cute guest book idea that Nick and Anna brought.  People put their finger print on a picture and it was oh-so-cute!

Matthew's food allergies have been well documented so I won't elaborate except to say that my grandma tracked down the perfect cake recipe for him.  Mommy's execution left a little to be desired. 

Note the pile of smashed cake.  This is the before pic.  I promise he hasn't touched it yet.

The adults, however, got a much prettier cake that coordinated with his invitation.  This is a before pic... before it met up with an accidental arm smack dab through it's middle.

But before we got to the cake thing our guest of honour decided to crash out for a much needed and untimely nap. 

When he woke up we whisked him straight into his high chair for a groggy round of Happy Birthday.  He took it all in stride.

As I was standing next to him looking out at the crowd I decided these crazy paparazzi needed to see what they looked like!  Oh to be loved that much.  It's too funny!

Just chillin' eatin' cake.  Whatevs.  It's like this happens everyday.  Don't we always have 25 people crowded around taking pictures and watching him eat?

Matthew also sat and opened EVERY SINGLE gift.  This kid's attention span blows my mind.  I'm not even joking when I say that he "read" every single card as well.  Crazy.

Here he is picking up his girlfriend.  Matthew has a special place for each lady in his life, but this one occupies the girlfriend spot.  He eyes her real boyfriend with what can only be called suspicion.  What a stud.

He was equally happy the next morning while hanging with grandpa in their pjs.  This is where grandpa pointed out to Matthew that he's always ready to pose for that camera.

Yep, I think he's right!

 

THANK YOU, EVERYONE!